Letters to the Editor 7/24/2014

ABINGTON HEIGHTS STRIKEAbington Heights teachers picket in front of a Lackawanna County building on Jefferson Ave., Friday just before noon.Byline: MIKE MULLEN Date created: 09/11/2004

ABINGTON HEIGHTS STRIKEAbington Heights taxpayers rise for a standing ovation when the Board announced that they will demand health insurance co-pays from the striking teachers during a meeting at the High School Wednesday evening.Byline: JOHNSON BACHMAN Date created: 09/09/2004

Wrong ‘maneuver’

Editor: Surely we can do better than Riverside School District Superintendent Paul Brennan’s action.

What about the 82 seniors who did meet the requirements? Maneuvering graduation requirements to increase graduation rates is not the answer.

The nongraduating seniors now have to use some alternative method to get their diplomas or equivalent. They had the opportunity and blew it.

I have seen the results of maneuvering (reducing) the standards and it doesn’t fare well for either the military or private industry.

Intelligent people established those standards, and to change them to increase statistics is a disservice to them as well as those students who met the challenge.

MIKE CHEROCHAK

JESSUP

Pay AH teachers

Editor: I attended James Fenimore Cooper school in Green Ridge. We had very good teachers — Miss Weiland, Miss Lynott, Miss Hartshorn, and the principal, Agnes Neville — who reinforced my lifelong love of history. We never saw a fill-in-the-blanks or multiple-choice test. Everyone was a competent writer.

Teachers have a profound lifelong impact on the students they teach.

Abington Heights teachers have been without a contract for three years. In a recent evaluation published in The Times-Tribune, the high school ranked high above surrounding districts. Yet the teachers are paid less than teaches in many surrounding districts.

If you wanted to downgrade the educational level of an area the best way to do it would be to underpay teachers so that the best ones leave and mediocre ones apply. Why can the school board not see this? Why do residents continue to elect board members who do not see this?

AL ROGERS

CLARKS SUMMIT

Go figure

Editor: As Gov. Tom Corbett runs for re-election he says the unemployment rate is one of the lowest.

The percentage of unemployed workers, according to the state Department of Labor and Industry, is claimed to be right around 6 percent. That is the lowest since before 2008 and the Great Recession.

You can get any number you want from the Department of Labor if you are running for re-election with a failed economic policy. The fact is that the unemployment rate is higher than what is reported.

To understand the numbers you have to add people that were conveniently or intentionally overlooked.

First, you have to add the 44,000 workers who were made ineligible for unemployment insurance by Mr. Corbett’s Act 60, even though they and their employers faithfully paid their premiums. That should be a crime.

Can you imagine what would happen if you paid into a life insurance policy and your family couldn’t collect the benefit? Well 44,000 working citizens and their employers are getting just that result. They pay in and they cannot collect, and the number will double every year over the next decade while out-of-state Marcellus Shale workers take home our unemployment funds.

Another number that was conveniently overlooked is the roughly 100,000 people who had their unemployment insurance terminated just before Christmas 2013.

The sad thing is, while we have a governor who has lived off the taxpayers most of his entire adult life, he has the gall to portray himself as a man of compassion.

Way to go, Tom. You have removed the food from the tables of over 150,000 working families in Pennsylvania. You should take credit for it.

FRANK A. SIRIANNI

PRESIDENT, PENNSYLVANIA

STATE BUILDING

TRADES COUNCIL

Still we the people

Editor: In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations, associations or labor unions.

This decision was widely recognized as turning over our government to the highest bidder. The Senate has come up with Joint Resolution 19, to reverse this by a constitutional amendment.

In a historic 10-8 vote on July 10, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to send it to the full Senate for a vote.

The Supreme Court has held that Congress has no power to regulate the amount of money flooding elections. This is not a partisan issue. This is about special interest money against the rest of us.

We, the people, should call on all members of the House to co-sponsor this amendment, to restore the power of democracy back into the hands of the actual people.

JOHN WALSH

OLYPHANT

No discrimination

Editor: The buzzards and jackals are circling the Inne of the Abingtons in search of carrion or discrimination.

They will find neither.

The Inne, I suspect, would not host a topless or nude event as a resort in the Poconos recently did. I would also suspect it will not host miniature bikini events, or events involving the ACLU, or any event by a group or person that is contrary to the Inne’s standards and innate principles formed over years of experience.

There is a subtle but extraordinary distinction between being biased against a person or being against an event, the nature of which one finds unacceptable for the business.

The director of marketing and sales for the Hilton Scranton should do a gut check instead of pandering for business.

Passage of the Pennsylvania LGBT anti-discrimination bill will not impact the Inne’s position. There is no discrimination here.

RUSSELL G. RICHARDSON

WAVERLY

High-dues club

Editor: Former Sen. Bob Mellow, once a powerful leader, became powerless.

He falls in line with Judas, who betrayed Christ, Benedict Arnold, who betrayed his country, Delilah, who betrayed Samson. Welcome to the “club.”

LEN KATO SR.

PECKVILLE

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